IM Working

Ask 14 year-olds what IM is and they'll tell you it's the way they
talk to their friends. The days of teenagers clogging up the family
phone line with gossip have passed. Today, most high schoolers, and
college students for that matter, use instant messaging to
communicate with their friends. In fact, 90 percent of 13- to
21-year-olds report that they instant message. This comes from a
survey of over 4,500 Internet users by America Online. The survey
focused on general instant messaging habits, rather than just
focusing on AIM, AOL's instant messenger service. What is obvious
is that while young people are spending huge amounts of time
messaging back and forth with their friends, the trend is moving
beyond just teenagers.

Instant messaging is becoming increasingly popular in the
workplace, for example. "We found for people who were employed, 43
percent said they use instant messaging on the desktop every day in
the workplace," explains Brian Curry, senior director for AIM
Network Services, part of AOL. "People are starting to turn to
instant messaging first inside the workplace. These people ask
themselves, 'is someone online and can I quickly dispatch with this
task?'" Curry specifically discusses the use of instant messaging
in financial services as a remedy for what they call 'the two-ear
problem.' "I can only be on two phones at once, maximum. But IM
allows them to tile 10 instant messages on a screen."

While 10 conversations at once is certainly the extreme, AOL
reports that 1.7 is the average. Not surprisingly, 13- to
21-year-olds have the highest average at 2.3 conversations while 55
and older have a mere 1.3. "Because of its real-time nature and its
ability to carry on multiple conversations, we're finding it's
fitting some of the social realities of those younger age groups
where information isn't information until it's bounced around their
peer group a few times," Curry says. It's easy to believe that as
these young instant messengers grow up and move into the workplace
they will take their digital communication habits with them. Today
27 percent of all instant messengers do so at their workplace. That
is a 71 percent increase from last year.

As these numbers continue to increase, marketers are taking notice.
More films and music releases are including ways for consumers to
customize their instant messaging windows with images associated
with the product in their marketing mix. "I think it's not
surprising to us to see people wanting to bring their brand and
marketing efforts into this medium and exploit this medium that's
growing so fast," explains Curry. With 59 percent of the market
messaging already and such a large portion of young people talking
to each other this way, IM may represent the future of
communication. Especially with new tools allowing messages to cell
phones, and vice-versa, in the future we may all just let our
fingers do the talking.